4 Highly Placed Lebanese Are Charged in Killing of Former Premier

By HASSAN M. FATTAH; Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut for this article.

Published: September 2, 2005

A Lebanese prosecutor charged a security chief and three former security officials on Thursday with murder in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the most significant step in the investigation of the Feb. 14 bombing.

The four suspects, Mustafa Hamdan, commander of Lebanon's Republican Guard; Jamil al-Sayyed, Lebanon's former head of general security; Ali Hajj, former chief of the Lebanese police; and Raymond Azar, a former military intelligence chief, were charged with murder, attempted murder and carrying out a terrorist act. The men, once feared as Syria's proxies in Lebanon, are expected to face a Lebanese investigative judge on Friday.

The most immediate impact of the indictments is likely to be on the embattled Lebanese president, ?ile Lahoud, who has faced calls for his resignation over the assassination. Detlev Mehlis, who leads a United Nations team investigating the bombing, acknowledged Thursday that Mr. Lahoud had argued that Mr. Hamdan was innocent. Mr. Lahoud is believed to have negotiated Mr. Hamdan's surrender to investigators to minimize embarrassment. In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Lahoud insisted that he would complete his term in office. ''I will continue to fulfill my responsibilities to safeguard the Constitution, Lebanese laws and the integrity of Lebanese territory,'' he said.

The indictments were handed down late Thursday on the recommendation of Mr. Mehlis, but the basis for the indictments was not immediately clear. The four men were detained Tuesday, with a fifth who was later released. Under Lebanese law, the remaining four would have had to have been released Thursday if not charged, an official close to the investigation said, asking not to be named because of political tensions surrounding the case.

''They took some part in the planning of the assassination,'' Mr. Mehlis said Thursday in his first public comments since he began the investigation in earnest. ''If that was motivated by political thinking or has a political goal, that will have to be determined. The motive of the crime is always important but it has to be established.''

The indictment of the men, all staunchly pro-Syrian, only deepened Lebanese suspicions that Syria had a hand in the assassination. An uproar after the bombing, which killed 20 people as well as Mr. Hariri, eventually helped persuade Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon in April.

Mr. Mehlis noted Thursday that investigators had not held or questioned a single Syrian suspect, and emphasized that Syria had yet to cooperate with his request to interview officials.

Mr. Mehlis, who was ebullient yet diplomatic, said he was optimistic. ''We feel we took a very important step, but the five suspects we have arrested, in our assessment, are only part of the picture,'' he said. ''So we have to investigate further and we do think that more people are involved.''

A former prosecutor in Germany's attorney general's office, Mr. Mehlis is experienced in terror investigations. He and his team have spent almost three months sifting through evidence at the blast scene, questioning hundreds of witnesses and searching suspects' homes. He is expected to release his findings this month, but raised the possibility on Thursday that he might seek an extension of his three-month mandate.

The indictments were issued amid growing fear and agitation in Beirut as a string of explosions and assassinations have rattled nerves.